'But when you were leading him, and it must have been you who let go his string,' said Helen; 'I cannot see how you can accuse Lucy of having been the means of losing him, when she was safe at home.'
Harriet was saved from the necessity of finding an answer, by hearing her mother calling her in the passage, and she hastened to obey the summons.
'Do you know where Fido is?' was Mrs. Hazleby's question.
'No,' said Harriet, finding she had only escaped one dilemma to fall into another. She avoided any further questions, however, by hastening past her mother and running up-stairs.
'Lucy, Lucy!' then called Mrs. Hazleby; and as Lucy came out of the school-room, she repeated the inquiry.
'I do not know, Mamma,' answered Lucy in a low voice, but standing quite still.
'Go and ask for him in the kitchen then,' said Mrs. Hazleby.
'I am afraid it would be of no use. Ma'am,' said Lucy, firmly, but not daring to raise her eyes; 'we missed him when we came in from walking, yesterday evening.'
'Yesterday evening!' cried Mrs. Hazleby; 'and did you never speak of it? I never knew anyone so careless as you are, in all my life. It is of no use to leave anything in your charge, you care for—'
Here Lucy leant back and shut the door behind her, so that Anne and Helen could distinguish nothing but the sound of Mrs. Hazleby's loud angry voice raised to its highest pitch.